At Last
by Goat Woman
Summary: *SLASH* H/D. This is a fanfic where Harry and Draco fight and Draco tries to make things right. I can't really say much without giving it away. *Complete* Just read it...and REVIEW


At Last

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**DISCLAIMER**: The characters in this story technically belong to JK Rowling. I mean, the names and stuff, but I have changed them so that they suit my mood!!!

THIS IS SLASH!! IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN YOU'RE A GIT AND YOU CAN BUGGER OFF.

"Why? Why do you have this deep-seated fear about love? About people who just want to care for you? I've tried so many times to understand you, but you've never given me the same back. Can't you even conceive of what love is? It's not the fear and torment that you make it out to be. It's beautiful, and it's RARE. And you want to squander it. To push it back in my face. I admit that I love you, and all I hope for is some idea of whether you love me too. And you can't see that I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with this. Why won't you just…let yourself open up? For a minute. Maybe I'll see what I've done that's made you so incapable of emotion."

"You admit it then. You don't know me. You know the part of myself that I show you Harry. You, who is so capable of love, of emotion. You then presume you can come in here and help me. Please, spare me. If you had any INCLING to what I've been through…"

"That's just it. YOU WON'T TELL ME. You won't tell me anything. I know that I love you and I can admit that to myself, and to you but you won't let me tell anyone else. I don't know how I can love you. I love what I think you are. I love the hope that I have for our future. But that's all it is. A hope. And I can't deal with this anymore. I learnt what love was at a late age. I had friends and I learnt how to be open and try to be happy with myself. See, you had a chance to do the same thing but you won't do it. I've tried to help you, even though you say that you don't need it, but you've ended up showing me an ENTIRELY different side of love and what it means to love. You've shown me that love is a thing that you give and give til it burns your insides. Til you're hollow and can feel every part of you burning but you keep giving in hope that maybe you'll get a little of that back. I never do though. All I do is wait here for you to come to me. I'm tired of waiting. Of wanting. I deserve a lot more than you are giving me. Because all I get from you I silence. I get silence. Every time that I try to open up to you, to tell you my problems, you get defensive and say that I don't really understand what a true problem is. But you won't fucking tell me why! You won't tell me what your problems were. You expect me to understand who you are through this mask that you put up. I don't know how to read you when you put that up.  And you wear that mask ALL the time. Why do you think I put up with this? I try to see behind your eyes and your blank expression. I try to see a hint of emotion, a spark of something that might show that you truly care. But I never get anything."

Draco glared at Harry with no sign of emotion on his face. He stood, breathing quietly, not letting a sound escape his lips.

"I get silence. I get that look on your face that you hide behind because you're afraid of what it means to feel. I've given you too much. Given you so much that I'm hollow and bleeding inside. I've given you parts of myself and my soul that I need, but I thought that maybe you'd give them the love that I was neglecting them of. But I was mistaken. Because you're fucking selfish. And you push people. You push them to test their limits and so that you can learn your own as well. Well, bloody lot of good that's done you. You've pushed EVERYONE away. You don't have a chance of making friends, or meeting people because you're too concerned with trying to hide away. No matter how hard you've pushed me I stayed. I stayed because I THOUGHT, that you loved me. I convinced myself that you were hurting me because you loved me. Because you knew that through everything I'd be there. Now, now I realise that it's just who you are."

Draco held his chin high, and stared at Harry through blank eyes.

"And you still aren't saying anything. You aren't defending yourself or asking for help. You aren't even pushing me away. Give me any emotion. I don't even care if it's hate or loathing. Any emotion to show that you even realise that I exist. Even that would be better then this mask. This indifference. I think that it might not even be an act. I think it's you. And you're making me into it as well. Now I'm hiding from my friends. Hiding what I am and who I love. You're forcing me to do things that I never would have done before. I am pushing them away so that I can keep you, but I don't even want that anymore. I am in love with YOU. Do you understand that? How much hardship and pain that I'm going through because this pathetic shell that you think is you needs to be loved and protected."

Draco still didn't move. His eyes locked with Harry's. Through Harry's pacing and crying, Draco stood still. Like a statue. Although Harry clawed at his hair, sat down, stood up and paced again, Draco did not move. Did not speak. He did nothing.

"When I walk into a room I look for you, even when I know that you won't be there. When I think about you I should get a feeling of light-headedness and tingles. I shouldn't feel like you are a burden. You didn't used to be…or maybe you were and I couldn't see it because I was blinded by the person that I thought you were. You seemed to me to be perfection, and I thought 'At last. At last I've found him'. I was so wrong. My belief is that everybody has a colour. A colour for their soul. Mine, I can't see mine. But I've seen yours. It's grey. But not the ice grey of your eyes. It's a lost grey. It's like the fog that you get lost in between looking for black and white. The fog that traps ships at sea. The kind of grey that you lose yourself in the depths of, then later find yourself drowning in it. Have you seen the colour of my soul? I don't even know if I have enough of one for it to have a colour anymore. I gave too much of it so that you could change yours. I didn't mean for you to swallow mine up."

Still the defiant silence.

"You suck every emotion out of people til they have nothing left to give you. You've bled me dry and still I rip things out of myself to give you. So that you won't be alone and scared. But I can't anymore. I'm tired. And if you could just say it now. Just say that you don't love me. Just say it so that I don't have to deal with this feeling everyday. This feeling that you're the person that I'm trying to run away from, but you're the only person that will take me back when I return. I'm tired of leaving you and then coming back, hoping that you've changed. Sometimes I think that you have. I pray and hope and DREAM that maybe today will be different. But it's this neutral mask that plagues me. SAY SOMETHING. Say anything…you just standing there…that's the worst part. I pour out my heart and my pain and it still comes back to you. Back to you and YOUR problems with what I'm saying. I feel like I'm on the ground, CRYING AND BLEEDING but I can't worry about that because all I can think of is you. I worry and cry and ache for you, and I get back nothing. No, I get worse than that. I get this silence. And that look. I can't even worry about my own problems anymore because you've made me so alone without the thought of you. ANSWER ME. Say anything"

"…"

"Fine. Well, that's it then. No matter how many times I say it you won't answer. You won't even…well, that's it. I love you. I gave you all I could and now you are going to treat me like everyone else who loved you. I'm dry and tired and lost. If you at least say that you don't love me then I can start to heal. Start to get some semblance of a life back and I can get back those pieces of myself that I so foolishly gave you. I can try and forget everything. Try and forget that silence. I'm leaving you. Again. And this time…it's not like the others. I'm not going to come back because I'm worried about you. I'm just going to turn away because I need to be loved back by somebody and that is something that I'm never going to get from you, is it?"

A look seemed to wash through Draco eyes. His face didn't change, but through his eyes it seemed as though something had changed. A light had dimmed. Something seemed to vanish.

"I just wish that I knew something. I wish that I didn't regret this. I regret it already, because I don't know who I am anymore. You've taken that away from me. I gave you too much. I just hope you know what I SELFISH PRAT you are. Look at me. I'm crying and BEGGING you to give me one last thing. Just tell me you hate me. Tell me that whatever we've had over the past year was all a lie. Tell me that you'd never love me. Just let me leave with a memory of you that's not that look. FUCK, I'm sick of crying about this. I'm going to tell people. Tell them everything. Would that hurt you and your precious reputation? Would you even care? Or is it…that you are capable of love…you just aren't capable of loving me?"

Draco looked away and then turned his back and walked over to a window.

"Please…can't you just tell me why? Tell me before I walk out of this GOD FORSAKEN room. Just, have pity on me. This is going to be the last memory I have of you…of us and you are still making it so that I'm worried about how I'm hurting you. I'm worried that you'll think that love is this painful, well love can be pain. I wanted you to be laughter and happy memories. I wanted you to be always and forever. A foreign concept for me now. Can't you think about how you've treated me? Look inside yourself and see if you even pity me enough to tell me something about you. Anything…"

Draco took a deep breath, but did not look at Harry. He kept his eyes on the snow-covered grounds at Hogwarts. Harry sighed and stepped towards the door.

"Goodbye then Draco"

"I love you"

Harry stopped and turned back to look at Draco.

"What?"

"I love you" Draco said in a quiet and even voice.

"No. No you don't. Don't say that. Not now"

"I do. You wanted me to speak. Then listen to what I'm saying. I love you."

"The sad thing is Draco, that I don't believe you. Those are the three words that I have wanted to hear from you more than anything. Those eight letters should mean more to me than anything else in the world. Right now I should be relieved and happy. But I'm not. I'm afraid because if you really mean that it means that I might have to stay with you, and that means that I stay hollow. And I don't want that."

"Harry, don't walk away from me. I've said that I love you what more do you want?"

"I want you to mean it Draco" Harry said softly. " I want you to look at me and be filled with the adoration that I feel when I see you. It's not going to happen. You keep saying these empty words. And they don't make me feel any better. They don't make me feel anything. See, I am becoming like you."

"Harry… wait…"

"That's all you can say?" Harry said bitterly. "Wait? All I did was wait. I waited for a year for you to say that and now you're saying it because you're afraid to lose your punching bag. I'm going to leave."

"Harry…please. I want to…I don't want to be silent anymore."

"Maybe it's time for me to be silent so you can figure yourself out. Don't take too long Draco. I don't have forever. Neither do you."

"I'M TELLING YOU I LOVE YOU. What more do you want???"

" I want you to fucking mean it. I don't want you to say it because I need to hear it. I want you to say it because YOU need to say it."

"Harry…"

"No. I'm not being pulled back into this."

"But…"

"Goodbye Draco."

Harry walked out of the room and closed the door. He walked calmly along the corridor before he reached what he was walking to. He entered the disused classroom and closed and locked the door. He calmly walked over to the window and sat in a chair in front of it.

'I won't cry. I won't cry' He repeated to himself as the tears started to well up in his eyes. He sat there for hours, reminding himself of why he'd done what he did, and why it as the right thing to do, but still, in the back of his mind, he could only see Draco.

*************

Harry woke up a few hours later, freezing cold from the wind blowing into the room. He looked around and became more aware of his surroundings. This was the classroom where he and Draco had…gotten together. Not an official couple. No handholding or kissing each other on the cheeks. But for a while… for a while it was perfection.

Harry curled up in his chair and closed his eyes and tried to remember everything about that moment. There was a song…'At Last' by Etta Jones. It was playing in the room. Harry had gotten one of the items from the muggle studies class. An old record player, and he'd gotten that record from Mrs Figg. No one ever realised that he was the one who took it, and it had been made so that it could work inside Hogwarts. Draco had walked in and seen Harry lying on the ground and listening with his eyes closed.

*Flashback*

Draco looked into the classroom in hope that it would be empty. He quietly opened the door so as not to alert Mrs Norris and then snuck inside. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief then turned around, and had to stifle a gasp as he saw Harry lying on the cold stone floor and listening to a muggle music machine.

_'At last, _

_My love has come along_

My lonely days are over 

_And life is like a song'_

The music played into the room and Draco was hit by the beautiful simplicity of it. He slowly walked over to Harry and saw that he was half asleep. He quietly bent down and trailed a cool hand down Harry's flushed cheek. Harry's eyes slowly fluttered open and locked with Draco's.

"Draco!!!" spluttered Harry, sitting bolt upright. He flicked his arm out to the side and knocked the needle of the record player, causing it to screech and then stop. Draco fell backwards in alarm and glared at Harry.

"What are you doing Draco?"

Draco slowly picked himself off the ground, then walked over to the record player.

"Put it on again." He demanded.

"Why would I do that?" Harry asked.

"Please?" There was a quietness, a pleading in those eyes, and although he didn't want to, Harry felt obliged to do as Draco wished. He walked over to the record player and put on the needle again, at the start of the song. The sweet melody filled the room and he watched, as a look of happiness seemed to wash over Draco's features.

_'At last_

_My love has come along_

_My lonely days are over_

_And life is like a song'_

"Would you dance with me Harry?" Draco asked, a hint of pleading still in his eyes.

"Well…I don't know…" Harry started to say, but stopped when Draco intertwined their hands. Draco pulled Harry to the middle of the room and started to sway with him, slowly at first, bringing their bodies closer and closer together.

"We fit," he whispered.

"What?" Harry breathed questioningly.

"Can't you feel it? Our bodies, our minds…our souls. I slot right into place with you."

"Oh" Harry said quietly, trying to digest this information.

Draco pulled his head away from Harry's neck and looked him in the eyes

"Can I kiss you Harry?"

"Draco…"

"Can I?"

"Al…alright"

And Draco did. It was awkward at first, but Harry parted his lips and stifled a moan as he felt Draco's lips pressing against his. The next thing Harry knew, he was being lowered onto his back.

"Tell me Harry, do you want this?"

"Draco…I…don't know"

'At last 

_The skies above are blue_

_My heart was wrapped up in clover_

_The night I looked at you'_

"Do you?"

Harry looked into Draco's eyes and saw something there that he didn't expect to see…love, or a need to feel loved."

"Yes." He whispered, pulling Draco's lips onto his own. "Always and forever I want you."

*End Flashback*

Harry bit back his tears and placed his hands over his ears. Trying to block out everything in the world. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to fight every emotion and every memory that was trying to haunt him. And then he heard it.

'At Last 

_My love has come along_

_My lonely days are over_

_And life is like a song_

_At last_

_The skies above are blue_

_My heart was wrapped up in clover_

_The night I looked at you'_

Harry opened his eyes and saw that Draco was sitting on the windowsill looking at him. Draco got down and stepped towards Harry and knelt in front of him. He reached up and ran a hand down the side of Harry's face.

"Will you dance with me Harry?" He said simply, wiping away a tear that began to fall down Harry's face.

"No. I can't Draco. I won't go into this again." Harry said feebly.

Draco pulled Harry to his feet and put his arms around Harry's waist. 

'I found a dream that I could speak to 

_A dream that I can call my own_

_I found a thrill to press my cheek to_

_A thrill I have never known'_

"Don't cry Harry. We can start again. And I'll be better this time. No masks. Look, I'm not wearing one now am I? Please. Let me prove to you that I do love you, that I deserve you again."

"No. I won't let you do that to me again. I've gone back too many times. And every time I try to tell myself that you will be like you are right now all of the time. But you aren't. And you don't love me. You love the idea of having me around." Said Harry into Draco ear, still moving in time with the music.

"No Harry. I love you. I love that you make me realise who I want to be and why I want to be that way."

"Then why the silence? Why are you closed off and you don't tell me anything? You push me away an then expect me to come back all because of this one night…this one song."

'Oh, you smiled… 

_You smiled and the spell was cast_

_Now here we are in Heaven_

_For you are mine _

_At Last'_

The music ended and the record player began to make a clicking noise as the needle hit the end of the record. Harry felt as though he was being pulled out of a dream.

"Draco?" He asked.

"Mmmm?" Draco said into his ear.

"It won't work will it? Me and you? No matter what happens we are too different. I mean, you have your father, your mother. You have all of those expectations and that's why you came to me. To try and fight them. That's why you don't talk to me. You want to convince yourself that you don't have to do what they tell you, but you don't want to get close enough so that this may actually affect you."

Draco looked at Harry in shock. Then he lowered his head and stepped away.

"It was like that." He said, his voice shaking.

Harry let out a small cry before stepping back, to put room between Draco and himself.

"Listen to me. I'll talk. I'll really talk so that you can understand why I was like I was. Please, I know I don't deserve it just give me the chance though Harry."

"See, everyone had all of this stuff that they wanted me to do. Be a perfect son. Be a Death Eater. Know my place. Learn about life from behind a plate of glass so I wouldn't be hurt. Just, watch life go by. I wanted to prove, not to them, but to myself, that I could do something without them having to take care of me. It was then that I started to watch you. To think about you in ways that I shouldn't have. And then I realised that I would do it. I would seduce you and lose you. Hurt you so that I could prove that I could handle the outside world and everyone in it. But, I saw you there…when I walked in here. I didn't even mean to find you. I wanted to be alone. But I saw you. You looked so innocent and I loved you then. Without even realising it yet. And I wanted you all over me and inside me."

"But you did it under the impression that you could hurt me!" Harry's voice cut into Draco like a blade.

"Listen to me, please Harry. I walked over and all I wanted was for you to love me. I was desperate for you. Then, even though I didn't want to admit it to myself. We made love. It wasn't just sex. You treated me better in that one night than anyone ever treated me. And so I didn't want to give that up. And I told myself that I didn't need it or you, but I did. I finally had someone taking care of me and treating me well. And I didn't know how to treat you the same way. I've never learnt that. So I closed myself off because I thought that one-day I'd have to give you up. And I wanted to protect us both. I wanted to build up masks so I didn't say or do something stupid. It was my right…"

"No, It wasn't your RIGHT. I should have known. You dragged me on under a lie." Harry sobbed.

"But that's the beauty of it. It's not a lie. Even tonight when I realised you were going to leave me I thought that it would be better than telling you the truth. Telling you that I love you. And I do. And I told you and you still left and I knew then that I'd lost a piece of you. And it was the one piece that was holding me together. I have all of this love and pent up emotion that I want to give you if you'll let me. Let me heal your insides so they don't burn. Maybe…maybe we can teach each other what real love is again. I know you hate me now. But I love you. I realised when you left that I don't want to lose you."

"You already have." Harry spat tearfully, taking in gulps of air.

"I haven't. Don't say that. I haven't yet. See Harry, I'll be better now. Now that I know what love is. What it tastes like and how it hurts when it's ripped away. I don't want that. I don't want to live my life in fear. A life lived in fear is a life half lived. I know that now. An I know that you are my other half. The part of me that stops me being scared. Please, don't take that part of me away now that I've found it."

"Draco. Did you ever think that maybe you are the part of me that makes me scared and hurt. I don't know how to deal with all of this new information. You tell me that you wanted to use me and now you say that you want another chance! How do I even begin to trust you again? You think that by coming in here and playing a song I will forgive you for dragging me through hell for the last 6 months of our relationship? I just…I love you, but I don't know how to forgive you for doing this. I mean, you being honest is a start…but trust. That's gone."

Harry turned and walked towards the door ignoring the feeling that he was leaving a part of himself behind.

"Always and forever." Draco said quickly.

"What?" Harry asked without turning around.

"Always and forever I want you. That's what you said. You meant it, I know you meant it." Draco said forcefully, the tears starting to come out of his eyes. 

"Always and forever. And you said them every time before we made love. I made you say them and it wasn't for the power or because I thought that it made you weak. It was because I believed you. And every time you said it I thought that things would be ok. That they could work. You want me, always. I know you do."

"It's too late."

Draco walked over to Harry and spun him around and held his by his forearms.

"I want you always and forever Harry James Potter. I need you always and forever and I will spend always and forever trying to win you back if you won't take me. I will always and forever love you if you let me in I will always and forever take care of you. Please. Please let me be your always and forever again?" Draco pleaded.

Harry looked into Draco's eyes and sighed. He slowly pulled his arms away from Draco and leant in an kissed him lightly on the lips. Harry rested his forehead against Draco's and whispered. "You are my always and forever. You always will be. Goodbye Draco." Harry pulled away and walked out the door, leaving Draco standing alone, staring after him.

~fin~

Well, that's my fanfics…*coughs nervously and shuffles feet* I hope that you enjoyed it…even though it was sad and there were tears! *Sobs* Anyway, I am thinking of writing a sequel but it is all up to my muse…evil muse…ANYWAY, please review because if you don't I will send an army of evil Rats and Chickens after you.


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